Pepsi CEO's Mother Had A Brutally Honest Reaction To Her Daughter’s New Job

While interviewing Indra K. Nooyi, the CEO of PepsiCo, at the
Aspen Ideas Festival Monday*, David Bradley, who owns The
Atlantic, asked two questions that elicited as frank a discussion
of work-life balance as I've seen from a U.S. CEO. Below is a
lightly edited transcript. The second question was preceded by a
brief discussion of Anne-Marie Slaughter's "Why Women Still Can't Have It All."

Q. You come home one day as president of the company,
just appointed, and your mom is not that impressed. Would you
tell that story?

This is about 14 years ago. I was working in the office. I work
very late, and we were in the middle of the Quaker Oats
acquisition. And I got a call about 9:30 in the night from the
existing chairman and CEO at that time. He said, Indra, we're
going to announce you as president and put you on the board of
directors ... I was overwhelmed, because look at my background
and where I came from — to be president of an iconic American
company and to be on the board of directors, I thought something
special had happened to me.

So rather than stay and work until midnight which I normally
would've done because I had so much work to do, I decided to go
home and share the good news with my family. I got home about 10,
got into the garage, and my mother was waiting at the top of the
stairs. And I said, "Mom, I've got great news for you." She said,
"let the news wait. Can you go out and get some milk?"

I looked in the garage and it looked like my husband was home. I
said, "what time did he get home?" She said "8 o'clock." I said,
"Why didn't you ask him to buy the milk?" "He's tired." Okay. We
have a couple of help at home, "why didn't you ask them to get
the milk?" She said, "I forgot." She said just get the milk. We
need it for the morning. So like a dutiful daughter, I went out
and got the milk and came back.

I banged it on the counter and I said, "I had great news for you.
I've just been told that I'm going to be president on the Board
of Directors. And all that you want me to do is go out and get
the milk, what kind of a mom are you?"

And she said to me, "let me explain something to you. You might
be president of PepsiCo. You might be on the board of directors.
But when you enter this house, you're the wife, you're the
daughter, you're the daughter-in-law, you're the mother. You're
all of that. Nobody else can take that place. So leave that
damned crown in the garage. And don't bring it into the house.
You know I've never seen that crown."

Q. What's your opinion about whether women can have it
all?

I don't think women can have it all. I just don't think so. We
pretend we have it all. We pretend we can have
it all. My husband and I have been married for 34 years. And we
have two daughters. And every day you have to make a decision
about whether you are going to be a wife or a mother, in fact
many times during the day you have to make those decisions. And
you have to co-opt a lot of people to help you. We co-opted our
families to help us. We plan our lives meticulously so we can be
decent parents. But if you ask our daughters, I'm not sure they
will say that I've been a good mom. I'm not sure. And I try all
kinds of coping mechanisms.

I'll tell you a story that happened when my daughter went to
Catholic school. Every Wednesday morning they had class coffee
with the mothers. Class coffee for a working woman — how is it
going to work? How am I going to take off 9 o'clock on Wednesday
mornings? So I missed most class coffees. My daughter would come
home and she would list off all the mothers that were there and
say, "You were not there, mom."

The first few times I would die with guilt. But I developed
coping mechanisms. I called the school and I said, "give me a
list of mothers that are not there." So when she came home in the
evening she said, "You were not there, you were not there."

And I said, "ah ha, Mrs. Redd wasn't there, Mrs. So and So wasn't
there. So I'm not the only bad mother."

You know, you have to cope, because you die with guilt. You just
die with guilt. My observation, David, is that the biological
clock and the career clock are in total conflict with each other.
Total, complete conflict. When you have to have kids you have to
build your career. Just as you're rising to middle management
your kids need you because they're teenagers, they need you for
the teenage years.

And that's the time your husband becomes a teenager too, so he
needs you (laughing). They need you too. What do you do? And as
you grow even more, your parents need you because they're aging.
So we're screwed. We have no ... we cannot have it all. Do you
know what? Coping mechanisms. Train people at work. Train your
family to be your extended family.

You know what? When I'm in PepsiCo I travel a lot, and when my
kids were tiny, especially my second one, we had strict rules on
playing Nintendo. She'd call the office, and she didn't care if I
was in China, Japan, India, wherever. She'd call the office, the
receptionist would pick up the phone, "Can I speak to my mommy?"
Everybody knows if somebody says, 'Can I speak to mommy?' It's my
daughter. So she'd say, "Yes, Tyra, what can I do for you?"

"I want to play Nintendo."

So she has a set of questions. "Have you finished your homework?"
Etc. I say this because that's what it takes. She goes through
the questions and she says, "Okay, you can play Nintendo half an
hour." Then she leaves me a message. "Tyra called at 5. This is
the sequence of questions I went through. I've given her
permission." So it's seamless parenting.

But if you don't do that, I'm serious, if you don't develop
mechanisms with your secretaries, with the extended office, with
everybody around you, it cannot work. You know, stay at home
mothering was a full time job. Being a CEO for a company is three
full time jobs rolled into one. How can you do justice to all?

You can't. The person who hurts the most through this whole thing
is your spouse. There's no question about it. You know, Raj
always said, you know what, your list is PepsiCo, PepsiCo,
PepsiCo, our two kids, your mom, and then at the bottom of the
list is me. There are two ways to look at it. (laughing) You
should be happy you're on the list. So don't complain. (laughing)
He is on the list. He is very much on the list. But you know,
(laughing) sorry, David.

* The Atlantic co-hosts the Aspen Ideas Festival
with the Aspen Institute. PepsiCo is an event sponsor.